Laughing at Inappropriate Times

[10/16/2020 — KIP Writers Group Assignments

Did I laugh at inappropriate times? Yes, I can remember many many such occasions. I also got mad at inappropriate times. Most of these incidents happened during my early years in the United States. The reasons for these are simple. People who live outside the United States would probably agree with me that most Americans think they have a pretty good sense of humor. And they do. Unfortunately, sometimes their jokes don’t go well with the crowds from other parts of the world. There could be many reasons, such as, language barrier, cultural differences, misunderstanding, unfamiliar idioms or catch phrases, subtlety, metamorphism, etc., etc.. All these sometimes result in being slow in catching a joke. In my case, the problems were mainly either jokes going over my head or late understanding. Worse yet, sometimes, our son had to explain some jokes to both my husband and myself. To his credit, he did it patiently to both of us; sometimes explaining the same joke more than once. And, then we laughed and laughed and laughed. We might not have laughed at a joke when it was told, but later we laughed our heads off when it became clear and funny to us. We enjoyed these jokes for days and laughed again and again. But, I must admit, while in a crowd, I learned to camouflage a laugh by noticing the others without understanding a joke. I even tried to tell these jokes to others. But, by that time, people have moved on to other things already. So, you can imagine how my smiling or laughing at a joke that someone told much earlier, maybe even two days earlier, could cause some confused looks. Sometimes, I did that to a great annoyance to others during my office meetings or some religious ceremonies which were supposed to be serious and somber events. I understand there are many people who fall in this category. In some ways, it helped me to understand some things. For example, to be patient with people who may not laugh at your jokes when telling it. Or, people who may laugh suddenly and you scratch your head and think what did you just say that was so funny. I learned to be more understanding and patient after I worked with someone who laughed or cursed suddenly at most inappropriate times. Someone explained, it’s called Tourette syndrome. We all are so different! And, that is what makes this world so beautiful, diverse, so unique, so precious !